Parsons -- Still on the Edge / Late country-rock pioneer gains a growing cult status

James Sullivan, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, September 9, 1998

After overdosing at the Joshua Tree Inn 25 years ago, Gram Parsons left this world in a desert funeral pyre ignited by his friends. Today, the legacy of the country- rock pioneer burns hotter than it did upon his death.

In life, Parsons was a fringe talent in more ways than one, a garishly outfitted guitarist perhaps best known for his associations with the Byrds and the Rolling Stones. In death, however, his influence on those groups and others such as the Eagles, his work with the Flying Burrito Brothers and his own solo recordings with a young Emmylou Harris have earned him a cult following that grows steadily with each passing year.

This week marks the republication of "Hickory Wind," the 1991 Parsons biography by veteran San Francisco writer Ben Fong-Torres. On the weekend of September 18-20, the Cosmic American Music Festival takes place at Pappy and Harriet's Pioneertown Palace in Southern California; it's the third annual staging of a celebration originally dubbed Gram Fest. "I was amazed at the first Gram Fest how young the audience was," says Fong-Torres. Parsons' legacy, he says, "seems to have only grown with each half-step generation of musicians. It's no longer just the Elvis Costello generation, or even the Evan Dando generation."

Costello and Dando (the latter of the Lemonheads) are two of the performers who have submitted tracks for a Parsons tribute due from Almo Sounds early next year. Supervised by Harris, the exquisite country singer who first made her name as Parsons' harmonic foil, the untitled collection features an impressive roster including Beck, Lucinda Williams and Wilco.

It won't be the first Parsons tribute. Rhino Records released one a few years back featuring the Mekons, Victoria Williams and the now-defunct Uncle Tupelo.

Yet another tribute is said to be in the planning stages in Nashville, Tenn. And Mercury Nashville is working on an abridged version of "Hickory Wind" as an audio book; Luke Lewis, the label's president, went to school in Florida with Parsons.

"I think (the Parsons legacy) needs to be remembered and relished," says Larry Klug, North Carolina-based Webmaster of the Gram Parsons Homepage. In the five years since he launched his site, he says, curiosity about Parsons has soared.

After playing a few Parsons songs with his group the Calamity Twins, Klug recalls, "I found there was no information about -- Gram, so I jumped into that venue. It's blown into a giant undertaking." The recent profusion of "y'all-ternative" acts includes a number of country-rock bands who borrowed their names from Parsons songs -- the Sin City Boys, $1000 Wedding.

PARSONS' INFLUENCE

"Yeah, we know a couple of his songs," jokes Dan Henzerling of Arizona's Grievous Angels, who took their name from Parsons' final solo album and made their debt plainer still with the title of their album "New City of Sin."

Thirty years ago, Parsons emerged as one of the first performers to make the connection between rock's academic folk-music fixation and authentic "hillbilly" music.

"At that point, country music was still considered hopelessly unhip," said Linda Ronstadt in a recent interview. "When I met Gram Parsons and Bernie Leadon (the latter a short-lived member of the Flying Burrito Brothers, later with the Eagles), they were like closet country music lovers."

A Florida-born citrus-fortune heir in a family beset by Southern Gothic dysfunction, Parsons (born Cecil Ingram Connor) was a buttoned-up folkie before being introduced to psychedelic drugs during a brief stay at Harvard University in the mid- '60s.

Relocating to Los Angeles with his International Submarine Band, the young experimentalist joined the Byrds in time for the benchmark 1968 album "Sweethearts of the Rodeo."

AHEAD OF HIS TIME

But Parsons didn't stay long, breaking away to co-found the Flying Burrito Brothers with fellow ex-
Byrd Chris Hillman
. He was still ahead of his time: Wearing flamboyant rhinestone suits designed by the famed L.A. outfitter Nudie, stoned to the gills on a smorgasbord of substances, he was an enigma to both the rock 'n' roll and traditional country establishments. But his honest affinity for country music and Memphis-style soul held great appeal for
Keith Richards
, for one. For a time, Parsons and the craggy Stones guitarist were fast friends. In fact, the Burritos' rendition of "Wild Horses" -- recorded before the Stones' own version -- has led some to conclude that Parsons had a hand in writing it.

The Stones connection, says Fong-Torres, is critical to the Parsons legend. "Of course, there's a glamour to an early death that's hard to top. But it comes down to the music. "He really had a unique vision of the music and the mystique. It all adds up."